How does a farmer's decision to adopt conservation practices influence downstream water quality?

Achieving sustainability depends not only on bold new science, but also on research that can bring drastic changes in human attitudes, intentions and -- most importantly – behaviors. The CHANS-Net Network harnesses the best minds from across disciplines that will create a revolution in sustainability.

Paul Ehrlich, CHANS-Net member and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and his coauthors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations, and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," said Ehrlich, professor of population studies in biology.

The stereotypical trappings of urban living -- fine restaurants, boutique shopping, amazing people-watching – need to accommodate one more city dweller: wildlife.

Cities are traditionally seen as places for people, but many species of wildlife thrive in urban areas. Interactions between humans and wildlife happen more often in urban areas than any other place on Earth. These interactions affect human health, safety and welfare, in both positive and negative ways.

By comparing and reflecting on their previous research, five former CHANS fellows from the class of 2012 have developed an analytic framework that other scholars can use when designing future interdisciplinary studies on farmer decision-making.

Sponsors

National Science Foundation (NSF) - The only federal agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical sciences. We are tasked with keeping the United States at the leading edge of discovery in areas from astronomy to geology to zoology. So, in addition to funding research in the traditional academic areas, the agency also supports "high-risk, high pay-off" ideas, novel collaborations and numerous projects that may seem like science fiction today, but which the public will take for granted tomorrow.

Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University - A center of excellence that integrates ecology with socioeconomics, demography, and other disciplines for ecological sustainability from local, national, to global scales.

Global Land Project - A joint research project for land systems in the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the International Human Dimensions Programme.

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About CHANS-Net

Coupled human and natural systems(CHANS) are integrated systems in which humans and natural components interact. CHANS research has recently emerged as an exciting and integrative field of cross-disciplinary scientific inquiry, with research projects covering a variety of coupled systems in locations spanning the globe. Although individual projects have generated many important insights, it is essential to systematically transform the field to be more than the sum of its parts and provide broader insights of greater scientific and societal significance than those resulting from individual projects alone.The goal of CHANS-Net is to foster this transformation by facilitating communication and collaboration among members of the CHANS research community.